


Doomed Iteration

by NervousOtaku (orphan_account)



Series: Tales of a 144 Player Fansession! [19]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Doomed Timelines, Money Transferring, SBURB Fan Session, Skaian Technology, Time Shenanigans, Viewports, fanmade of course though I based it off of canon technologies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 12:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10412454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/NervousOtaku
Summary: Or: We Fucked Up And Now We're All Screwed With Nothing Any Of Us Can Do About It





	

It was Caitlin, surprisingly, who made the post first, rather than Pygmalion.

_We fucked up, guys. Death be not proud._

The first thing that always happened directly after this sort of thing was a private memo that only the Time-players could access opening up for discussion. Seeing where they went wrong, how long ago, how bad, and if anything could be done. The discussion usually lasted ten minutes.

This time, after twenty minutes of debating and experimental Time-shenanigans within the memo, they had returned to the other memo, and Ben had delivered the verdict.

_We can't do anything._

Britt felt a fair amount of guilt from this.

He should have _known_ , with every single doomed Britt dropping for no explicable reason.  
And then there was the fact that their timeline had too much time left. He'd only harm the alpha by bringing them everything that remained. It seemed like an odd idea, but Ben had explained it as too much time being counterproductive, and allowing the bad guys more time to do things. As it was, the alpha currently had plenty of time to get everything done, with only a little extra. This equilibrium was to be maintained by other doomed Britts and the alpha Anabelle and Brian.

Britt sighed, wading through a bog he'd never explored before. He'd never had the time before, but now... well, now he had nothing _but_ time.

He'd always felt sorry for Caitlin and Pygmalion. Chances were, the alpha versions of them were watching, had watched, or would watch this. More death that they undoubtedly felt responsible for. Britt could never say for certain, but it always seemed like those two put up with a lot more than they let on.

Jumping up onto a mangrove's platform of roots, Britt considered where they had gone wrong this time.

Two people not having Gristorrent, therefore not enough grist to make items that their alpha selves did.

Every little thing factored in, huh?

This part of his planet was much brighter— why had he not come here before? The light of Skaia filtered through the thinner trees better, making things look friendlier. It was still muggy and hot, but at least LOEAS had no mosquitos. That would be _truly_ unbearable, in Britt's opinion.

Grunting, Britt clambered up the tree some more so he could examine what tech was set into this one. See how waterlogged it was, maybe find a way to fix that in what time they had left before paradox time-space eliminated them all. Just playing around, really.

This machine was interesting. It looked like a cross between an ATM machine and one of those server-things that big companies kept. The ones that were person-sized towers of various ports and things and were mostly there for the tech-people to perform maintenance with. The mangrove had grown around it oddly, making it at a slight angle. This forced Britt to cock his head as he looked at it.

Huh.

Could he turn it on, or was it too damaged by the swamp?

It took a minute to figure out, but the machine did start up, running surprisingly smoothly. On the screen, it offered three choices— message, deposit, or viewport.

What now?

Before Britt could contemplate too much, a savage hiss drew his attention. Looking almost directly below, he could see a ruby basilisk with feline and avian qualities, dressed in clothes reminiscent of a security guard. And it could see him, preparing to climb up the tree after him.

“Jeez. Pain in the ass.” Britt muttered, uncaptchaloguing his Skeleton Key in preparation for the imminent strife.

He counted to three, then dropped from his perch in the tree and aggressed. The basilisk just barely managed to dodge his slash, turning to attempt aggressing of it's own. Britt didn't give it much time to work with, lunging forward again and backing it up the tree. This exposed it's long midriff to attack. Britt quickly switched from the Skeleton Key to the Key Of Death, and jabbed forward. The basilisk shrieked and exploded into grist, some of it bopping Britt on the face and shoulders before settling down to be collected.

Sighing, Britt didn't even bother to check his echeladder or see how many boondollars he'd gotten. Ignoring the grist, he climbed back up the tree to better examine the odd ATM.

Curiously, he selected the viewport option. This opened up three new options, current, alpha, or other.

Huh. This was interesting.

Britt somewhat hesitantly chose the selection for alpha. This brought up twelve new options— the Aspects. He decided to go with Time.

Again, twelve new options.

LOPAD, LOSAY, LOLAR, LOFAA, LOSAL... These sounded like planet-names. There was LOEAS, Land of Electronics and Swamp. Were they all the lands of the Time-players?

Curious, Britt selected his own planet.

A screen tucked into a nearby tree suddenly lit up, startling him. Once he was done swearing and calming his heart down, Britt leaned back to look at what the screen was showing him.

It was _him_.

Trudging through the swamp towards a consort village, with the Skeleton Key out and ready. But he was wearing something Britt could say for a fact he did _not_ own, meaning that was a different Britt—

_The alpha Britt._

As that realization dawned on Britt, he nearly fell out of the tree.

Fumbling a bit, he went back to the screen with the Aspects. He chose Doom, and flicked through the planets until he found Pygmalion on LOSAT. The grimdark Seer paused in what he was doing, looked up, and _waved_. Britt nearly choked on his laughter.

“... C... Can you see me now...?” he asked aloud, feeling slightly crazy.

Much to his surprise, the Seer on the screen nodded.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck _fuck_. The messages and deposits— to you too?”

That wasn't worded well, but Pygmalion nodded again.

Britt laughed breathlessly, then began mashing buttons.

He could message any timeline through this machine— they were numbered according to what order they'd diverged from the alpha, which was denoted as zero in this. Only other Britts, but he could still message other timelines, which was amazing. And the deposits allowed him to send grist and boonies between timelines. The grist could be taken from Gristorrent, but the boonies had to come from his pocket, and he could send them to anyone he so chose.

A little investigating showed this to be the only machine of it's kind. It was a Skaian Paradoxal Messenger, or SPM machine, and had never advanced past the prototype thanks to apps on phones and the like. There were twelve screens around the grove, each screen reserved for a Class. It would take hours to explore fully, time he had only because he was doomed, but...

Britt opened up the message option and began composing an email directed to the alpha timeline Britt explaining what he had discovered and where to look in order to find it in his timeline. Once that had been sent, he composed one for every player in his timeline, requesting everyone give up every boondollar they could spare and start killing as many underlings as possible. He also asked that all the computing, coding, and tinkering freaks come see if they couldn't help him get his planet up and running properly, find out what else they had at their disposal. Finally, he sent out a message to every doomed Britt he could reach, telling them about the SPM machine.

As the Rogue tapped feverishly away at the machine, sending grist and boonies galore over to the alpha, he couldn't help but smile.

Ben had been wrong.

They _could_ still do something.


End file.
